NASA Asteroid Search Program Decade Behind Schedule

The U.S. space agency is a decade behind in meeting a congressional mandate to detect meteors capable of destroying a city, and needs a telescope in space to improve tracking, the nation’s top science officials said.

NASA’s leaders said most large asteroids that may trigger a global catastrophe have been found and tracked, and an impact within the next several centuries is unlikely. Smaller objects are harder to track, arrive more often and are less lethal.

“Unfortunately, the number of undetected potential ‘city killers’ is very large,” John Holdren, assistant to President Barack Obama for science and technology, said today at a hearing of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. “It’s in the range of 10,000 or more.”